The Austrian composer and church musician Ignaz Martin Mitterer was born on February 2, 1850 in St. Justina (East Tyrol). He was ordained a priest in 1874 and studied from 1876 with Franz Xaver Haberl and Michael Haller at the ''Kirchenmusikschule'' Regensburg. Regensburg was at that time the spiritual center of the Cäcilians and his church music school was very famous.
After his studies Mitterer himself became a teacher there. He soon spent two years in Rome and then became Kapellmeister at Regensburg Cathedral in 1882 as well as becoming director of the ''Regensburger Domspatzen''.

In 1885 Mitterer was appointed by the Tyrolean Prince Bishop to the position of Kapellmeister at the Cathedral of Brixen. Here he received numerous honours (1905 honorary citizen of Brixen, 1906 monsignor, 1917 canon) before he retired in 1917. He died in Brixen on August 18, 1924. His approximately 200 musical works include 45 masses, motets, hymns and church music textbooks.